Alton Towers - SW7 - "The Smiler"

[gouldy]

Well, I'm an airtime kind of guy, so I'd have to say that second airtime hill. Here's someone's video of it flying over that element (if you look closely at the very beginning of the video, to the right, you can just make out "The Innoculator" spraying its contents onto the riders just before the train passes through):




It seems to dive down into the ground a lot more than you're expecting it to do, so the airtime lasts just a little bit longer than you're thinking as you enter the hill. Damn good, and a really nice way to break up the inversions.


The main thing to say about the whole ride, is the general feeling of disorientation. Even as an enthusiast, it was genuinely difficult at points to keep a track of where we actually were on the circuit, or which way was even up, or down, haha. Very well paced ride, the whole way through, the pace of it feels unrelenting apart from the lift hill in the middle of the ride. It helps with the feeling of speed, of course, that every 2 feet or so there is some kind of near miss.


I haven't been too happy with Alton Towers about the way all this has been done/managed, but this ride is a spectacular addition to the line up for sure, and definitely well worth the wait.

[gouldy]

Full POV from today!

[mkingy]

I really like these longer trains - makes the ride look like it has much more flow!

[gouldy]

Yeah, they're impressive to watch flying around the circuit.

This video has some pretty good shots of just that:




Think this might be Alton's idea of a joke...




There's our washing machine.

[mkingy]

Made me laugh when I saw that posted on the interwebs haha. Thinkk one AT message board put something like "Heres something for the Towers Times members"

[gouldy]

This is a very good video, with some really awesome shots of how the ride duels with itself, and some general other footage. But what's most interesting is at the end of the video there is footage of a roll-back on the vertical lift hill. Utilising those fins that there was such a big deal about (people thinking they were for a launch ).

[mkingy]

Personally I think thats superb engineering, so smoothly and casually returning into the brake run!

[gouldy]

I don't believe it.

Smiler has stalled at the bottom of the Batwing/Staffordshire knot element during testing this morning, and X-Sector will once again be closed today while they rescue the train.

The problems are never ending with this ride! It's like it's cursed!



Photo of the site right now, credit to TowersStreet

[Coasterkidmwm]

Huehuehuehuehue Deja Vu

[gouldy]

What Guest Services currently looks like...





British people being British, and queueing to complain.

This last couple of months has been a PR disaster for Alton Towers.


I wonder whether it'll be a case of them just not running testing it with empty trains first thing in the morning in future, or whether we'll see them bring in Gerstlauer to sort the problem out for good?

I don't understand the huge variation we've seen in speed on this ride, at the moment. During some of the early testing videos we saw it absolutely blasting through all of the elements, obviously way too fast; then in later testing videos, it was crawling through, only just about making it through the second part of the Staffordshire Knot. Could just be that they still haven't sorted the wheel setups for all of the trains?

[Coasterkidmwm]

All turbo wheels all the time!

[Turbo]

I'm starting to wonder if they're doing this on purpose. if they are, genious

[gouldy]

They didn't tell the employees that work there they're doing it on purpose, if they are!

A good pal works there, and had an awful day today working crowd control in the morning at the entrance to X-Sector (you can only imagine how bad that was, being the first person to tell excited guests that the ride they drove hundreds of miles to ride is closed for the day), then when he returned to his usual post as an Op on Air, that broke down, too!

Originally posted by gouldy

A good pal works there, and had an awful day today working crowd control in the morning at the entrance to X-Sector (you can only imagine how bad that was, being the first person to tell excited guests that the ride they drove hundreds of miles to ride is closed for the day), then when he returned to his usual post as an Op on Air, that broke down, too!

I can only imagine...

Even as a food services worker at Cedar Point, as soon as one of the big coasters shut down, people would inevitably always start asking me "hey, do you know when the Dragster is supposed to reopen? Why did they shut it down?" How the hell am I supposed to know?

Went on The Smiler today. Fantastic, must say, loads better than I expected. Actually got dizzy after the second round, and there were a couple of sections where I had no idea what was anything. However, one severe jolt really hurt my neck >.>
Queue was pretty short, was in excess of 4 hours on opening but got down to about 1hr 20 at lunch. Great ride.

Side note: Nemesis was really really fast today? Has its speed changed or am I just remembering it wrong?

[gouldy]

That happens with Nemesis. Sometimes when you ride it, it feels loads faster than you remember it being. Might just be because it's a hot day, for example.


Speaking of the jolt on Smiler; are you talking about the second inversion in the cobra roll?

Originally posted by gouldy

That happens with Nemesis. Sometimes when you ride it, it feels loads faster than you remember it being. Might just be because it's a hot day, for example.


Speaking of the jolt on Smiler; are you talking about the second inversion in the cobra roll?

Yeah, pretty bad. It's a shame because the rest of the ride was really smooth.

[Coasterkidmwm]

That part of the cobra roll looks more like a tight turn than an inversion lol. Maybe they did that because they were concerned about it valleying?

http://matmi.com/wp-content/uploads/201 ... iler_3.jpg

Looks like one of the earlier noob cobra rolls I'd try and build back in the good old days of having time to play NL.


Please don't start an inversion debate over this.

I had a similar statement pages ago

[Coasterkidmwm]

http://rcdb.com/10059.htm?p=37023

That exists also lol^

[gouldy]

You'll never guess what's happened.

It's stalled AGAIN. During testing this morning; but this time, the train was testing with weighted dummies, not empty - suggesting this could very easily happen during normal operation.

X-Sector will once again be closed for the entirety of the day while they get a crane in to pull the train through to the next set of brakes.

Pretty sure they should rename it The Staller, now.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Same place?

If yes, then enjoy your Deja Vu

[gouldy]

yes, same place!

It seems as though the problem with the ride is a misfiring trim brake. Just remove the trims and be done with it!

http://old.towerstimes.co.uk/news/news. ... %2C10%2C11


Looks like they're not bothering with a pull through, and just removing the train completely.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Originally posted by gouldy

yes, same place!

It seems as though the problem with the ride is a misfiring trim brake. Just remove the trims and be done with it!

That may require even more reprogramming than the reprogramming need to fix the trim misfires to begin with.

Computer glitch makes it more Deja Vu also heh

[gouldy]

If anyone's interested, the ride's soundtrack has been released by the company who made it: